The role of the Department has been understood to be to initiate, facilitate, coordinate, and catalyse for the implementation of CRDP. The Committee welcomed various plans with regard to infrastructure development, creation of economic opportunities such as cooperatives and enterprises. It further noted that the success of a comprehensive rural development initiative partly depended on the ability of the Department to successfully coordinate and integrate its services with those of other government Departments and development NGOs. The Committee welcomed that functional delivery forums would be set up to deal with this matter. The Committee's concern was that experience from the oversight visits shows that some of the structures set up, for example councils of stakeholders, were not functional but existed only on paper.